Slashdot Mirror

SirBruce writes "As reported by Space.com, Spaceflight Now, and elsewhere, NASA is now planning to retire the Space Shuttle Atlantis by 2008, after just 5 more flghts. By doing so, they would avoid a costly and time consuming scheduled overhaul, and could still fly the remaining 12 missions (17 total) with Discovery and Endeavour, which are just now completing their ODMPs (orbiter maintenance down period). Atlantis would be kept for spare parts to keep Discovery and Endeavour flying until the shuttle program is shut down in 2010."

peterdaly writes "As a proud new owner of a Mac mini, I quickly discovered the internal hard drive performance was so pathetic compared to what I was used to that I needed to do something about it ... preferably on the cheap. I ended up trying a FireWire attached storage enclosure and using an older 80GB drive I had in my closet from a dead PC. My mini got about a 75 percent disk performance increase for about $50 (or $100 if you need a drive). Here is a benchmark of before and after as well as information about my research and upgrade. If you already have at least 512MB RAM, this may be the best performance bang for your buck if you're looking for your mini to be faster and more responsive."

As he does every few months, SirBruce has updated his page detailing Massively Multiplayer Online Game subscription numbers. No major additions this time around, just some minor tweaks reflecting recent trends. FFXI is way up, with EQ taking a slight dip. No data on EQ2 is included yet. For slightly cynical further analysis, Anyuzer provides us with his opinions.

Thanks to jer0 for pointing to SirBruce's updated MMOG Subscription Growth analysis page, which tries to "chart the trend in active subscriptions" for major MMO titles using public and private data. This "major revision" has the "chart separated into three tiers" dependent on subscription size, and shows Lineage as the worldwide MMO leader at "just under 2.7 million" (though this may be reliant on bulk 'PC Baang' subscriptions in countries such as South Korea, and the game has "only 7,000 [subscribers] in the United States.") Other notable entries include City Of Heroes ("surpassed 180,000 subscribers... proof that a well-executed MMOG can still garner substantial numbers even in the current competitive climate"), and the also recently launched, but less successful Horizons ("After peaking at around 35,000 subscribers, they have since fallen to somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 subscribers.")

EvilBastard writes "Sony Online Entertainment have announced that, due to an almost universal player backlash against the next expansion pack that is seen more as a $30.00 patch for missing content, they are delaying the new EverQuest expansion by 6 weeks, and will 'spend time fixing the problems you have brought to our attention'. Also announced is a plan to fly some of the more vocal website people to SOE headquarters, to try to restart enthusiasm for what may be the last EverQuest expansion ever. With the cancellation of Everquest for Mac, some high-profile guilds quitting, 6 months of allegedly declining numbers, big - budget competition and now a widespread call to boycott future games, is the much-predicted end of EverQuest almost here?"

Thanks to CorpNews for its recent round-up analyzing and rating the biggest PC massively multiplayer games. Along with subscription estimates similar to the SirBruce analysis graph, there's sharp-tongued comments on performance for Ultima Online ("It's really all your fault. If you weren't a big hit, would others have followed?"), EverQuest ("Say what you will... it knew its target audience and hit it hard enough to make EQ part of popular culture"), and Asheron's Call ("Talk about the little engine that could.")

An anonymous reader writes "MMORPGDot's new game status report details the latest advances in the space-based MMOG EVE Online, discussing the highs and the lows of being the reigning champion of MMO space sims with Hellmar, EVE's lead programmer." The interview shows that the game's 30,000 subscribers, although tiny compared to other MMOGs, is "...more than enough to keep the game running, [as] we are a small company with considerably less overhead than many other MMO operations." It's also revealed that the equivalent of a housing expansion for space is planned: "We have also been working on player owned structures in space for quite some time now and will release them into the game early next year. The structures allow players to build small towns in space, comprised of control towers, sentry guns, power generators, mobile refineries, field assembly arrays, ship hangars, and more." HomeLanFed also has a recent interview with the EVE Online developers.

Thanks to GameSpot for their story revealing Korean MMORPG Lineage II has racked up significant amounts of initial subscribers in its native country. According to the article about the Unreal-engine PC sequel, "in the game's first five days in release, publisher NCsoft has tallied more than 130,000 paid users." However, SirBruce's subscription page points out that many subscribers to the initial, 4-million subscriber Lineage: The Blood Pledge "play in 'PC baangs', Internet cybercafes in [South] Korea that buy Lineage access from the company and then sell it at hourly rates to customers", making subscriber comparisons with games like Star Wars Galaxies more difficult. Elsewhere, GI.Biz reveals the PlayStation 2 is the most popular console in Korea, although only 600,000 strong, with 92.5 percent preferring it over the 60,000-selling Xbox, as "...players cited the lack of Korean language software and poor customer service as their key problems with the Xbox."

ShannonA writes "Dave Rickey examines the growth of the online RPG industry in his newest Engines of Creation article, 'Age of Discouragement?'. Based on his own analysis, and SirBruce's MMOG subscription chart, he projects that the best growth for MMORPGs is still ahead: 'In truth, we are solidly in the growth phase of our market, and our largest related markets have yet to really open up.'"

Thanks to the folks at GameGirlAdvance for pointing to Bruce Sterling Woodcock's newest update of his MMOG subscription chart. This update has newer subscription numbers for many of the MMOG leaders, and has added games such as EverQuest: OA, Shadowbane, EVE Online, and Star Wars Galaxies to the chart, commenting that the recent market shows "...the market competition is fierce and the cannibalization of subscribers is now clearly evident... [but] there is still possibility for large success, as the more recent launches of Ragnarok Online in Japan and Star Wars Galaxies have shown."

s390 writes "Olliance has the second of its Open Source articles up at the Inquirer. It's called "Engaging with the Open Source Community (Part Two)", and it explains the different levels of involvement that companies can have with Open Source. More education for managers, and an outline of a corporate process for approaching adoption and deployment of Linux and other Open Source software."

Wtcher writes "Bruce Woodcock has cobbled together a chart recording the growth of various massive multiplayer online games in subscriber numbers, relative to each other. I just found it interesting to see a visual summary of how well each MMOG was doing compared to one another." Apart from Lineage, which is omitted because the author says "trying to compare it to other MMOGs is almost like comparing apples to oranges", it seems that Everquest is still way out there in front, but there's a number of more recently-launched titles jockeying for position in this very competitive market.

Max Tardiveau writes "I just finished Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness. It is an enjoyable book, written engagingly by an interesting character -- the kind of book that makes you think twice about certain things (for instance, the fact that you're not dead: is that really because you're so darn good, or does dumb luck play a part?) Although written all the way back in 2001, this book is more relevant than ever, since one of its major topics is the impact of unpredictable events on markets, insurance, and our perception of life in general. In fact, Taleb makes a living from unforeseen events; these days, that seems like a rather cunning niche." Read on for the rest of his review of this book. Fooled by Randomness author Nassim Nicholas Taleb pages 220 publisher Texere rating 8 reviewer Max Tardiveau ISBN 1587990717 summary Debunking fallacies of observation, Taleb reminds us of the pervasive ineffables that complicate life at every turn.

The main topic of the book is the fact that all humans are simply terrible at judging probabilities. Taleb is a securities trader, so a lot of the book revolves around financial probabilities, but his argument is mainstream and requires absolutely no knowledge of the markets. The book details examples of people wildly misjudging risks and probabilities in many contexts. Often that misestimation is understandable in advance of certain events, but harder to excuse after they've occurred; Taleb hits pretty hard on what he calls "data snoopers," his term for people who back-fit theories to existing data.

One of the most notorious examples is the Bible code (which has been thoroughly debunked), but Taleb argues that analysts who spend their time trying to find patterns in historical market data are no different: if you try long enough and hard enough, you will unavoidably find apparent regularities, which can be extremely compelling when seen in isolation. In context, though, they dissolve into nothing but meaningless statistical anomalies. Taleb rightfully compares these searches for meaning to the famous monkeys and typewriters parable.

Taleb's best example of poor probability intuition is probably the infamous survivor bias, which is our tendency to be disproportionately impressed by success. We almost always ignore the fact that, for one success story, there are many failures. But we seldom hear about the failures (just like we never hear about the many theories that didn't fit the data). So it's all a game of numbers: out of 10,000 traders, a few are statistically bound to be successful, even if they are nothing more than lucky idiots. The fact that they succeeded does not mean anything. It doesn't mean that they are bad traders, but it doesn't mean that they are good traders either, because on average somebody had to succeed.

One of Taleb's hot buttons is that people tend to be too confident in what they know. He argues convincingly that we should take everything, including science, with a grain of salt. Writing about Karl Popper, he points out that there are only two kinds of scientific theories: those that are demonstrably false, and those that are not yet demonstrably false. An irksome (but sadly true) observation, yet most people behave as if what they know is eternal truth. One could of course argue that Popper's observation is but another kind of truth, but I tend to put a lot more trust in people who question what they know than in people who don't.

Another of Taleb's peeves is the human tendency to over-attribute every random event (the old post hoc, ergo propter hoc). For instance, a commentator saying that "the Dow went down ten points today on concerns about Iraq" is talking nonsense: there is no way anyone can tie such a small market move to any particular reason. I found this specific point (which in retrospect is blindingly obvious) especially enlightening, as I am embarrassed to admit that, until now, I just accepted those market comments at face value.

Taleb also has some fun at the expense of economists and analysts, especially those whose predictions turned out wrong, but who claim that the theories were in fact right, and that the facts simply weren't supposed to be that way. This is what he calls denial of history, and is common among investors and gamblers (the two being of course close cousins).

The style of the book is informal and funny, and often meandering. We hop from one topic to the next, which occasionally may detract from the book's continuity, but overall the author's points come through loud and clear. Ironically for a man who advocates self-doubt, Taleb is starkly self-confident, though not in an irritating way.

Taleb is an intriguing, multi-cultural, iconoclastic character that has been around Wall Street for a while, and now runs his own small firm. Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point, an absolute must-read for anyone who owns a brain) has written an excellent article that shows how Taleb's reasoning runs counter to just about every bit of conventional Wall Street wisdom. If you're interested in the markets, especially derivatives, and how Taleb trounces most of Wall Street's voodoo doctors, this moderately technical interview from 1996 is worth reading too.

Overall, a warmly recommended book.

You can purchase Fooled by Randomness from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

hesheboy writes "Wolfram.com has a story about building a battlebot with Mathematica: 'October 28, 2002--Looking for action with brains-over-brawn appeal? William McHargue, a freelance physicist and long-time Mathematica user, is one of many who find this combination in BattleBots, the new fighting-robot craze. "With BattleBots, one can be aggressive and yet nobody gets hurt," says McHargue. Recently, McHargue was featured in Mechanical Engineering magazine for work on Tesla's Tornado, his BattleBot.'"

tiltowait writes In response to the incredulity expressed in this story about the technical prowess of libraries, I'd like to present a short essay titled "Librarians: We're Not What You Think" - read on for more. Update: 10/20 18:15 GMT by M : The author has also put up his essay on his own webpage. From the spinster librarian in It's a Wonderful Life to the crochety archivist in Attack of the Clones, librarians are often portrayed (in everything from movies, musicals, children's books, literature, science fiction, comics and cartoons to pornography - yes, pornography) as something less than noble or admirable. The perception of librarians has been a popular topic recently, with several articles focusing on the fringe-type librarians (ska, rockabilly, bellydancing, modified, bodybuilding, laughing, and lipstick). Although something of an anti-stereotype, these people illustrate the range of librarian personalities.

Many people may hold the image of a librarian as a shushing school marm who does little more than stamp and shelve books because that's all they've seen librarians do. Well think again - that's about as inaccurate as believing that Alan Greenspan is nothing more than a glorified bank teller. The job titles may change but the mission of the profession remains the same: organize information and help people find it. Libraries have been around a lot longer than the Internet, and even library technology can hold its own with the best out there. For example, Google's savvy results ranking was hardly the birth of citation analysis (next up: metadata - cough, cataloging, cough), and there are enormous library systems that also predate the Internet.

Although library geeks and technology nerds may have contrary images, in today's world the boundary between the career of the librarian and the information technologist is disappearing. Librarians today not only administer Web servers and dynamic databases to help manage large digital collections and thousands of electronic resources, they teach people how to use library systems. And just as enlightened computer engineers are advocates of noncommercial software and campaign for online rights, the library profession has a long history of staunchly defending freedom - from book burnings to the FBI's Library Awareness Program to the latest copyright battles and almost all other current issues in intellectual freedom.

Check out LISNews.com (recognize the format?) and some library blogs if you're interested in reading more about real librarians.

jmulvey writes "A new University of Georgia study shows that most of the human genome contains a huge historical record of retroviruses. The study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that viruses were instrumental in the evolution of chimps into humans."

cmuncey writes: "Lawrence Lessig's newest effort is profiled this morning in a SFGate.com article this morning. Creative Commons will offer customizable flexible intellectual property licenses that can be used by artists, writers, and others in moving their works from copyright to public domain in a controlled manner. The aricle also cites plans to create a 'conservancy' for what looks like orphanware. This is a joint work of Lessig and people from MIT, Duke, Harvard and Villanova."

peterdaly writes "The JBoss website has an interview with Marc Fleury, the JBoss founder regarding his vision. In case you have been living under a rock, JBoss is an Open Source Java Application Server (J2EE) which has been picking up tons of steam recently, especially with the recent introduction of features like clustering. Competing products from companies like IBM (WebSphere) and BEA (WebLogic) go for tens of thousands of dollars, which is interesting since JBoss is starting to have features the big boys don't. JBoss had 72,000 downloads in October. This is a project to watch."

Mr X writes "Here is a clip from an email I got from Versalogic (my company's supplier of embedded PC/104 Motherboards): Dear VersaLogic Customer: This letter is being sent to alert you to an important change in the long-term availability of several VersaLogic products. Please read it carefully. AMD, the supplier of CPU chips that are used on many of our products, has notified us that they plan to re-tool the production line that currently produces 486, 586 and K6 CPU chips. AMD needs to use their Fab 25 facility to produce a different line of products and will stop production on these CPU chips on June 28, 2002 ...... As recently as October 2000 they announced new processors (the K6-2E+ and K6-IIIE+) and assured us of their continuing long-term support for the embedded market." I've gotten a couple of these e-mails - full text of the e-mail is pasted below. At first glance, it seemed unsurprising with the faster chips, but this will have an impact on the embedded market.

Dear VersaLogic Customer:

This letter is being sent to alert you to an important change in the long-term availability of several VersaLogic products. Please read it carefully.

AMD, the supplier of CPU chips that are used on many of our products, has notified us that they plan to re-tool the production line that currently produces 486, 586 and K6 CPU chips. AMD needs to use their Fab 25 facility to produce a different line of products and will stop production on these CPU chips on June 28, 2002. The CPU chips produced by this facility are used in our VSBC-2, VSBC-6, VSBC-7, Panther, VL-686-2, and VL-586-1 products.

This decision by AMD, with whom we have worked closely for many years, is a major blow to the embedded computer market. It is very surprising that their long-standing dedication to the embedded market has taken such an abrupt turn. As recently as October 2000 they announced new processors (the K6-2E+ and K6-IIIE+) and assured us of their continuing long-term support for the embedded market.

Please note that this decision by AMD does not mean that they will immediately halt production or that these CPU chips will be in short supply. Normal production of these chips is scheduled to continue through June 2002. Last-time-buy orders can be placed in June for delivery of the chips in late 2002 and early 2003.

VersaLogic management has been hearing rumors of this possible change (various versions of it) over the last few months and has been working closely with AMD to avoid this radical change in their direction. We prepared for the possibility that their decision would ultimately be to issue an end-of-life notice. Now that the decision has been made, our focus will be on assisting our customers with planning and migration issues over the next 12-24 months.

Although this change is not immediate, each customer must look at the long term impact that this announcement will have on their product usage. In some cases this will mean placing an end-of-life purchase order with VersaLogic to continue delivery of the current product even after the AMD chips have been discontinued. For others it may involve qualifying new products, or using Intel Tillamook versions of our current products, for the current application. Tillamook versions of most impacted products will be available before year end. For further information please see the roadmap and migration information on our web site at http://www.versalogic.com/support/rdmp/rdmp.asp or contact us directly at info@versalogic.com.

Again, this change is not immediate, but planning steps should be taken now to assure a smooth transition in the future. We stand ready to support you as needed to make this transition as easy and painless as possible. "

panicboy asks: "I had a client (a dotcom casualty) give me a new, unused 40GB Quantum Snap! Server in lieu of payment. I'd like to replace the pair of 20GB drives inside the thing with something larger -- say, a pair of 80GB drives. If this is possible, the thing would rock; right now, it's probably not quite enough storage to be worth using. I've looked for sites that might explain how to do this, but no luck so far. Anyone have any suggestions? I'd hate to have to sell the thing."

cmuncey writes: "Salon has an Associated Press article that IBM, HP, Intel, NEC have announced an 'Open Source Testing Lab' for testing Linux for large corporate systems that will open by the end of the year in Portland, OR. The main four sponsors are putting up a couple of million and Red Hat, Turbolinux, Linuxcare, VA Linux, Dell and SGI are also kicking in. The lab itself will be run by a nonprofit corporation that will be neutral in picking the projects to be tested. Sounds a bit better Mindcraft, doesn't it?"

In case you were wondering, the article tell us that "Linux is seen as an alternative to proprietary operating systems like Microsoft's Windows and Apple [sic] OS." Certifications, labs like this, and Official Stamps of Approval mean perhaps more than they ought (corporate decision making being what it is) but that's hard to get around. And it sounds like they'll get to play with cool toys! ;)

Baldrson and other folks as well write: "Dan Brumleve is at it again with Brown Orifice. In this episode, our fearless grey hat opens a security hole in the Web's foundation that makes Napster look positively tame by comparison. Be careful with this, kids. It turns your Netscape Web browser into a Web server that can serve up your entire file system to any other Web browser."

Imabug writes "Everybody ought to know that radioactive decay is a random process. Someone's gone and used that fact to create a true random number generator based on the time interval between two decay events. Hardware is pretty simple. Geiger counter interfaced through RS-232 to a 486. There are even diagrams of how it was put together. Forget Intel's RNG...this sounds more fun! "

christian void writes, "The FTC recently ruled that it is illegal for credit reporting agencies to sell personal information to third parties. Here's an interesting article on a decision that will hopefully have ramifications in other industries. Score one for privacy."

cmuncey writes "This ABCNEWS.com story by Lee Dye brings up a problem I never knew about - noise in space vehicles. In all the SF movies you get vast silent space, (broken perhaps by John Williams music, or the sound of the wookie winning at chess) but the reality is noisier, and sometimes prevents communication, work, and sleep. Both of the Russian built modules for the International Space Station are noisier than NASA safety guidelines allow (like a noisy city street) and there have been reports of permanent hearing damage on Mir. The article explains why, and what can be done about it. "

hobgadling writes "According to ABC News, physicists at CERN in Geneva have recreated a "quark-gluon plasma", also known as the primordial soup, the state of the universe right after the big bang. The article here says that more experiments will have to be done at Brookhaven National Labs to prove this. " Brookhaven will be starting research in this area this summer - with much more powerful instrumentation.

cmuncey writes "Salon has two articles about those perennial geek favorites, the Darwin Awards. This includes an interview with "Darwin" and their current favorites from the winners and nominees. (The official site is here.) Any nominations that they have missed? "

mackga wrote to us about the new LinuxToday Counter-FUD site. Good site to get information and destroy detractors -maybe we should link to it The Linux Myths and see who comes out next.Update: 12/04 11:52 by H :Also, thanks to Rik van Riel who pointed the The FUD Counter site.

Steeldrivin asks: "What's up with widescreen TV, in the US? If you go to the widescreen TV website for Philips, you'll see that they have a bunch of cool widescreen TVs...but only in Europe. The US catalog is devoid of widescreen products unless you want to spend $10,000 for a flat-screen plasma model. The catalog for Great Britain, on the other hand, has CRT-based 28" and 32" models, that are probably much more affordable. As far as other manufacturers are concerned, the only widescreen models seem to be the more expensive plasma units, or huge projection TVs. What's up with this? When will the US get affordable widescreen TVs?" Philips' US catalog can be found here.

crisco writes to us with an article from InternetWeek addressing the concern of "trojan horse programs concealed inside open source code that could create new security headaches for IT managers", as the article says. The article deals mainly with the BO2K issue, which makes the whole open source connection a bit of a stretch.

b12arr0 sent us a link to a quick little GNOME article. An anonymous reader wrote in to say that GNUStep.org has had a major makeover. Nice to see that project still alive and kicking. chrisd wrote in to say that VA has made its first acquisition: ElectricLichen, possibly best known to most of us as the Beer Hike guys. OGL wrote in to give us the heads up to Linux Game Tome for info about a a work-in-progress video game starring Tux in a 3D environment. The screenshots alone are unbelievably cool. Brian Gue wrote in to tell us of a new a beer called Fubar. Why not fubeer? snorkel sent us a link to yet-another-dancing-animal-page. This is the Cow Dance Finally Vik Olliver wrote in with the most impressive Linux Fan act I've seen (narrowly edging out the dude at LWCE with the Tux hairdo). It is of course, Husband and Wife matching Tux Tatoos. My largely tux based fashion sense pales by comparison.

Igor wrote in with a link to a San Jose Mercury article about the discovery of the "Windows ID", and claims it "has been quietly used to create a vast database of personal information about computer users." It seems Windows 98 and other programs, like Office, embed a unique ID based on a MAC address into every document created (Office), or even submit an ID unique to a user during Windows Update (where it specifically says Microsoft will not send any information like that). The Intel thing never bothered me too much, but I'm not so sure about this...

mackga writes "Nick Petreley seems a bit put off by Linux advocates. A slight dig at the OSS movement? This one is interesting, seeing how Nick P. is involved w. Linux World. " Overall, I'd say it's a fairly good natured jibe at things.

When I put out my call for Geek Christmas Gift ideas, I had no idea what I was in for. But after the storm of email that followed was washed away, I was left with a list of toys that any geek would be excited to give or get this year for whatever holiday it is you celebrate this time of year. Hit the link below and read the list if you're curious. Random Stuff There were a few things that were suggested, that, well, I bet Santa won't come through for them. Hemos asks for Nanites. Thats all he wants. Nanites. Somebody smack him. Nima Negahban says "I would like the beowolf cluster avalon for christmas, dont worry about it fitting it under the tree. " david yates wrote in and simply said "Half naked Princess Leia ,as Jabba's prisoner, action figure." I'm sure his mother is proud. He can have the Action Figure, I want 1976 Carrie Fisher. Games Everyone and their brother wrote in to say that Nintendo 64's and Playstations are great. And the game of choice is definitely Zelda 64. I second that motion. I suggested it to my dad as a Christmas Present. Terrible idea- now I gotta wait until xmas to find out if he got it, and if he *didn't* I gotta buy in on Dec 26. Hard as hell to find. Folks suggested other things like the original Kings Quest or Leisure Suit Larry. Prince of Persia. Commander Keen. Ultima. All those games that aren't around any more, but with their original packaging. Finding a 5.25" drive to play them with might be a tad tricky tho. Clothing It's a well known fact that its better to be clothed at least part of the time. And no self respecting geek should be without a vast array of appropriately political t-shirts to pad out your closet full of suits, jackets, and ties (cough). Daniel suggested checking out the Free BSD Mall for BSD clothing. Jonathan Moore suggested the ever popular KMFMS t-shirts for your local microsoft hater. If thats a bit to exotic for you, how about the classic that Doug Boettcher sent us: the Hack Naked shirt. Since we're mentioning all these t-shirts, we ought to mention that CopyLeft has several shirts including my Don't Fear the Penguins ones, and Slashdot ones too. Software Several folks wrote in to say that they were buying Linux CDs from any of the various places that sell them, and giving them away to the needy. I tend towards Linux Central, and in addition to them Cheap Bytes OpenBsd.org and The Linux Mall were all suggested as places where you can buy the stuff we like. Hardware By far the largest catagory for gift ideas was of course Hardware:The Gift that Costs to much. Of course, anyone would want a a Palm III- it's hard to think of a better stocking stuffer. And besides, they're practically money in the bank now that you can use them to collect automobiles of the rich and famous. But if you've already got a Pilot, James A. Hillyerd suggests a GoType keyboard as the perfect accessory. If the pilot isn't your bag, but you want to read on the road, Mahlen Morris suggested A Rocket E-Book which is basically a tablet computer that is designed to replace books You can get them here. And apparently they have some sort of deal with Barnes & Nobles so you can get content to read on it. They're pretty sweet looking- someday we'll have a wireless version with net access, then we can forget paper. But for now, this'll do.

Have trouble remembering passwords? Digital Persona sells sweet hardware that that you can use to do finger print identification. Suggested by Andrew Lepisto. The pdQ was suggested by Adam D. McKenna. Its a cel phone with an integrated Pilot. Another fairly common suggestion for geek gifts was cel service from your local provider, and a cel modem for the laptop equipped gift getter. Sean McPherson suggested a Kodak DC210+ digital camera. Saves big bucks on film, and is supposed to be supported by SANE. I'm actually planning on getting a Digital Camera before the upcoming string of conferences, and I'll probably look at this one (unless Santa already has one in his bag for me, although at $400 a pop, I highly doubt it) Steven McDonald suggests that we look at DVD RAM Drives as a new huge backup device for storing your MP3s and Porn. Oh, and legit data too.

Mike Miller sent us several suggestions including the Happy Hacking Keyboard. I played with one at ALS- they're not bad. Just as cool are the new Color Gamesboys. I suppose tetris wouldn't be vastly improved by color, but its still pretty sweet. For those with a hugeass budget, How about your very own Alpha Cluster? Obviously Jakob is a lot more hopeful for Saint Nick than I am this year *grin*. How about a vt320 Terminal? Daniel Morrison suggested it, and I think it sounds pretty cool. I had a terminal attached to one of my Linux boxes for awhile. I Let it tail log files and stuff. Kinda fun for reading documentation and stuff too. Can't afford a Multi-Head X-Server, video card, and spare monitor anyway. Plus you can run them into another room and check your email from your kitchen/dining room/bathroom.

Matthew J. Allen sent us a pricey one, but its oh so sweet: Remember those Huge Flat LCD Screens from SGI? I sure do. I wake up after erotic dreams about them. (SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE:Hey SGI: Give Rob one of those things for banner ads. You've got a spare one just sitting around, right?). Matthew also suggested an Iomega Clik Drive if you're on a more reasonable budget. Those things do look pretty sweet. Do cables piss you off? How about the gift of a tangle free workspace? Scott Donovan sent us a link to Cordless Mice and Keyboards from Logitech that will free you up for spinning on your swivel chair really fast until you fall over from getting dizzy instead of getting tangled up in your keyboard cable.

Toys By far the single most suggested toy of all was the Lego Mindstorms. The robotic legos are quite possibly the coolest toy in the history of toys. They aren't cheap, but they are oh so sweet. Else you could consider X-Files Action Figures suggested by E. Waugh. Home Entertainment and Audio Gear The Panasonic Portable DVD Theater was sent in by Joel Telling. Its a tiny portable DVD player obviously designed to make me froth at the mouth like a rabid dog. Several folks wrote in to suggest something I would like, but I wouldn't want to froth on. The Empeg Car CD Player. We've mentioned this before, and although they won't be ready for christmas, they are pretty amazing. 2.1 gigs of MP3s in a car stereo. They need a 9 gig version mounted in a home stereo component too.

Jon Jones (is that a real name? *grin*) wrote in to send a link to ADB I/O which you can use to automate your home for the ultimate in comfort and/or laziness. For the true audio junkie, how about the THX Speakers sent in by Chad R. Henry. Sure, they cost more than my car, but I bet they sound amazing. If you're on a more modest budget Cambridge SoundWorks has some slightly more reasonably priced speakers that I'm told sound awesome. Andrew Hobgood suggests checking out Panasonic SJ-MJ70 MiniDisc Player (portable). Pretty sweet if you aren't willing to chance it on the Diamond Rio (which was also one of the most common suggestions). Frankly any geek should be excited to get either. Rob Sheehy pointed out that Philips has 42 inch widescreen flat TVs that you could hang on your wall if you happen to be rich and wanna watch letterbox movies. This one has a VGA input too.

Random Terry A. Braun suggests that geeks need to get into making our own beer. Sounds like a great idea to me, although I tend to screw up toast. But if you're man enough to try it, you can get Your Own Grain Mill. Alan Mathews wrote in to suggest a A dilbert M&M dispensor McPhee's has some strange stuff, including a Punching Nun suggested by Glen Lipka Tom Berger suggested A VI Command Set Mug STriker RedWolf sent us a link to a chocolate bar shaped like a Pentuim II Chip.

Jason Grundy suggests the $6 card game Kill Dr. Lucky and a Card both from the aptly titled Cheapass.com. Rob Pelkey sent in a pair of gift ideas that are a world apart. The first is An Authentic Moon Rock and the second is a Jesse Ventura T-Shirt or Bumper Sticker. One is probably worth a little more than the other. The concept kitchen has this wierd Finger Stylus Thingee that you can use instead of a pen for some pen machines. Kinda wacky. Sent to us by Wyatt Earp.

Justin Higgins suggests that geeks should all own a copy of the Star Wars Radio Drama. Sure, it costs almost a hundred bucks, but at 15 CDs, it balances out to almost be a bargain. They ought to package it on 1 CD full of MP3s, throw a copy of the script on the disc and sell it for $20. I'd never heard of the Leatherman Wave before, but several folks emailed me to say they are cool. And then I noticed that they were actually advertising here. Shows how much attention I pay to who advertises on my own site I guess. But still several people raved about them, claiming that they're ideal for mucking around inside computer cases with. And Traci Earl sent a link to a site that makes nice Leather Cases for them.

Do you think stuffed animals are stupid? Well how about a Stuffed Plush Space Shuttle? Dave Brunberg sent us that gem. Stirling Westrup sent in a link to something called the Hoberman Sphere which basically is a crazily designed sphere thingee that expands from 9.5" to 30". Crazy looking. If you're looking for something caffienated that you can put in your mouth, several folks reminded us about caffienated penguin mints.

Wrap Up Well this was fun guys. Spending hours looking at crazy things that I can't afford has convinced me to take up cracking banks as an evening hobby. But what is quite obvious is that 1998 is a good year to be a geek. And maybe in 1999 Hemos can have his nanites. Nah.

And lastly, with all the commercial hub bub that tends to go on during this season, don't forget the true meaning of Christmas: Ham.

When I put out my call for Geek Christmas Gift ideas, I had no idea what I was in for. But after the storm of email that followed was washed away, I was left with a list of toys that any geek would be excited to give or get this year for whatever holiday it is you celebrate this time of year. Hit the link below and read the list if you're curious. Random Stuff There were a few things that were suggested, that, well, I bet Santa won't come through for them. Hemos asks for Nanites. Thats all he wants. Nanites. Somebody smack him. Nima Negahban says "I would like the beowolf cluster avalon for christmas, dont worry about it fitting it under the tree. " david yates wrote in and simply said "Half naked Princess Leia ,as Jabba's prisoner, action figure." I'm sure his mother is proud. He can have the Action Figure, I want 1976 Carrie Fisher. Games Everyone and their brother wrote in to say that Nintendo 64's and Playstations are great. And the game of choice is definitely Zelda 64. I second that motion. I suggested it to my dad as a Christmas Present. Terrible idea- now I gotta wait until xmas to find out if he got it, and if he *didn't* I gotta buy in on Dec 26. Hard as hell to find. Folks suggested other things like the original Kings Quest or Leisure Suit Larry. Prince of Persia. Commander Keen. Ultima. All those games that aren't around any more, but with their original packaging. Finding a 5.25" drive to play them with might be a tad tricky tho. Clothing It's a well known fact that its better to be clothed at least part of the time. And no self respecting geek should be without a vast array of appropriately political t-shirts to pad out your closet full of suits, jackets, and ties (cough). Daniel suggested checking out the Free BSD Mall for BSD clothing. Jonathan Moore suggested the ever popular KMFMS t-shirts for your local microsoft hater. If thats a bit to exotic for you, how about the classic that Doug Boettcher sent us: the Hack Naked shirt. Since we're mentioning all these t-shirts, we ought to mention that CopyLeft has several shirts including my Don't Fear the Penguins ones, and Slashdot ones too. Software Several folks wrote in to say that they were buying Linux CDs from any of the various places that sell them, and giving them away to the needy. I tend towards Linux Central, and in addition to them Cheap Bytes OpenBsd.org and The Linux Mall were all suggested as places where you can buy the stuff we like. Hardware By far the largest catagory for gift ideas was of course Hardware:The Gift that Costs to much. Of course, anyone would want a a Palm III- it's hard to think of a better stocking stuffer. And besides, they're practically money in the bank now that you can use them to collect automobiles of the rich and famous. But if you've already got a Pilot, James A. Hillyerd suggests a GoType keyboard as the perfect accessory. If the pilot isn't your bag, but you want to read on the road, Mahlen Morris suggested A Rocket E-Book which is basically a tablet computer that is designed to replace books You can get them here. And apparently they have some sort of deal with Barnes & Nobles so you can get content to read on it. They're pretty sweet looking- someday we'll have a wireless version with net access, then we can forget paper. But for now, this'll do.

Have trouble remembering passwords? Digital Persona sells sweet hardware that that you can use to do finger print identification. Suggested by Andrew Lepisto. The pdQ was suggested by Adam D. McKenna. Its a cel phone with an integrated Pilot. Another fairly common suggestion for geek gifts was cel service from your local provider, and a cel modem for the laptop equipped gift getter. Sean McPherson suggested a Kodak DC210+ digital camera. Saves big bucks on film, and is supposed to be supported by SANE. I'm actually planning on getting a Digital Camera before the upcoming string of conferences, and I'll probably look at this one (unless Santa already has one in his bag for me, although at $400 a pop, I highly doubt it) Steven McDonald suggests that we look at DVD RAM Drives as a new huge backup device for storing your MP3s and Porn. Oh, and legit data too.

Mike Miller sent us several suggestions including the Happy Hacking Keyboard. I played with one at ALS- they're not bad. Just as cool are the new Color Gamesboys. I suppose tetris wouldn't be vastly improved by color, but its still pretty sweet. For those with a hugeass budget, How about your very own Alpha Cluster? Obviously Jakob is a lot more hopeful for Saint Nick than I am this year *grin*. How about a vt320 Terminal? Daniel Morrison suggested it, and I think it sounds pretty cool. I had a terminal attached to one of my Linux boxes for awhile. I Let it tail log files and stuff. Kinda fun for reading documentation and stuff too. Can't afford a Multi-Head X-Server, video card, and spare monitor anyway. Plus you can run them into another room and check your email from your kitchen/dining room/bathroom.

Matthew J. Allen sent us a pricey one, but its oh so sweet: Remember those Huge Flat LCD Screens from SGI? I sure do. I wake up after erotic dreams about them. (SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE:Hey SGI: Give Rob one of those things for banner ads. You've got a spare one just sitting around, right?). Matthew also suggested an Iomega Clik Drive if you're on a more reasonable budget. Those things do look pretty sweet. Do cables piss you off? How about the gift of a tangle free workspace? Scott Donovan sent us a link to Cordless Mice and Keyboards from Logitech that will free you up for spinning on your swivel chair really fast until you fall over from getting dizzy instead of getting tangled up in your keyboard cable.

Toys By far the single most suggested toy of all was the Lego Mindstorms. The robotic legos are quite possibly the coolest toy in the history of toys. They aren't cheap, but they are oh so sweet. Else you could consider X-Files Action Figures suggested by E. Waugh. Home Entertainment and Audio Gear The Panasonic Portable DVD Theater was sent in by Joel Telling. Its a tiny portable DVD player obviously designed to make me froth at the mouth like a rabid dog. Several folks wrote in to suggest something I would like, but I wouldn't want to froth on. The Empeg Car CD Player. We've mentioned this before, and although they won't be ready for christmas, they are pretty amazing. 2.1 gigs of MP3s in a car stereo. They need a 9 gig version mounted in a home stereo component too.

Jon Jones (is that a real name? *grin*) wrote in to send a link to ADB I/O which you can use to automate your home for the ultimate in comfort and/or laziness. For the true audio junkie, how about the THX Speakers sent in by Chad R. Henry. Sure, they cost more than my car, but I bet they sound amazing. If you're on a more modest budget Cambridge SoundWorks has some slightly more reasonably priced speakers that I'm told sound awesome. Andrew Hobgood suggests checking out Panasonic SJ-MJ70 MiniDisc Player (portable). Pretty sweet if you aren't willing to chance it on the Diamond Rio (which was also one of the most common suggestions). Frankly any geek should be excited to get either. Rob Sheehy pointed out that Philips has 42 inch widescreen flat TVs that you could hang on your wall if you happen to be rich and wanna watch letterbox movies. This one has a VGA input too.

Random Terry A. Braun suggests that geeks need to get into making our own beer. Sounds like a great idea to me, although I tend to screw up toast. But if you're man enough to try it, you can get Your Own Grain Mill. Alan Mathews wrote in to suggest a A dilbert M&M dispensor McPhee's has some strange stuff, including a Punching Nun suggested by Glen Lipka Tom Berger suggested A VI Command Set Mug STriker RedWolf sent us a link to a chocolate bar shaped like a Pentuim II Chip.

Jason Grundy suggests the $6 card game Kill Dr. Lucky and a Card both from the aptly titled Cheapass.com. Rob Pelkey sent in a pair of gift ideas that are a world apart. The first is An Authentic Moon Rock and the second is a Jesse Ventura T-Shirt or Bumper Sticker. One is probably worth a little more than the other. The concept kitchen has this wierd Finger Stylus Thingee that you can use instead of a pen for some pen machines. Kinda wacky. Sent to us by Wyatt Earp.

Justin Higgins suggests that geeks should all own a copy of the Star Wars Radio Drama. Sure, it costs almost a hundred bucks, but at 15 CDs, it balances out to almost be a bargain. They ought to package it on 1 CD full of MP3s, throw a copy of the script on the disc and sell it for $20. I'd never heard of the Leatherman Wave before, but several folks emailed me to say they are cool. And then I noticed that they were actually advertising here. Shows how much attention I pay to who advertises on my own site I guess. But still several people raved about them, claiming that they're ideal for mucking around inside computer cases with. And Traci Earl sent a link to a site that makes nice Leather Cases for them.

Do you think stuffed animals are stupid? Well how about a Stuffed Plush Space Shuttle? Dave Brunberg sent us that gem. Stirling Westrup sent in a link to something called the Hoberman Sphere which basically is a crazily designed sphere thingee that expands from 9.5" to 30". Crazy looking. If you're looking for something caffienated that you can put in your mouth, several folks reminded us about caffienated penguin mints.

Wrap Up Well this was fun guys. Spending hours looking at crazy things that I can't afford has convinced me to take up cracking banks as an evening hobby. But what is quite obvious is that 1998 is a good year to be a geek. And maybe in 1999 Hemos can have his nanites. Nah.

And lastly, with all the commercial hub bub that tends to go on during this season, don't forget the true meaning of Christmas: Ham.

Jeremy Allison - Samba Team writes "Well, this is a bit cheesy, as it's a commercial press release and also it's what I've been working on for the past 6 months :-). But I thought Slashdot readers might like to know that Silicon Graphics is now officially supporting Open Source Samba on the IRIX operating system. By "officially" that means they'll take your money :-). Plus it's got kernel oplock integration (only on IRIX 6.5.2f and above I'm afraid) so that means you can get at the same data via nfs and smb without anything screwing up. Here is the press release and the other cool thing is they finally published the Samba benchmarks I've been working on. Yep - Samba on IRIX is now officially the worlds fastest Windows server. I want to see what it'll do on Linux 2.2 now... - watch this space :-)."

Gavin Scott wrote in to send us a short excerpt from the JDK 1.2 License agreement. It says "You may not publish or provide the results of any benchmark or comparison tests run on Software to any third party without the prior written consent of Sun." Does this bother anyone besides the several of you that submitted it?

In yet another amazing disclosure, the DOJ case has brought to light that Microsoft considered buying AMD or Cyrix back in December 1997 at a time when computer manufacturers were complaining that Microsoft's OS costs were too high. The memo also states that Microsoft has been increasing the price of their software while hardware prices continued to tumble. Interestingly buying the rival chipmakers was based on fears that Intel was about to enter the OS business. This memo is the same as the memo which suggested an annual OS fee. Thanks to Crypt242 for the link.

Russ Magee was the first of many of you to write in about Robert Cringely's analysis of the Halloween I document. He thinks the OpenSource community has no cause for concern, and he reminds us to stay focussed on Linux, not Microsoft. Karsten M. Self wrote "The article Art of War by Varian and Carl Shapiro is a good introduction to the basic strategies involved in a standards war. The book Rules by the same authors is a very good read with a lot ideas pertinent to the current debate.". However Ben Woodard writes "I was talking to the Access tech support people here at Cisco about Halloween and how MS is planning to use embrace and extend, Em&Ex, to capture the market. They told me how Microsoft has a broken version of CHAP negotiation in the PPP protocol and if you want CHAP to really work you must use Microsoft's proprietary version of CHAP. It got me wondering if other people know about places where Microsoft has used Em&Ex but it is burried so deep in the protocols that most people don't know it exists. It would be interesting to try to compile a list of these little known incidents of Em&Ex. " Obviously it is impossible to know whether Ben's example is an example of flawed testing or real intent to break CHAP, but were serious evaluations of OS's to include standards-compliance tests, an interesting picture might emerge. Not only are standards an issue, but so are patents. So far, Linux has been lucky: many Unix patents have elapsed. Patents are something to mull over, while hacking.

Pete Popov writes "RedCreek communications makes Virtual Private Network (VPN) products which are IPSEC compliant and include 3DES encryption, MD5 and SHA1 authentication, etc. One of these products is a PCI based adapter, the PCI45, and I recently posted a driver for it at here. The driver will also be available at RedCreek's web site soon. The "importance" of this hardware/driver is that, I believe, it's the only encryption hardware currently on the market which works with Linux. RedCreek OEMs this adapter to Cisco and other large OEMs, but it will very soon be available pretty much off the shelf. This will make it possible to build high performance, low cost VPNs using Linux. "

Pete Popov writes "RedCreek communications makes Virtual Private Network (VPN) products which are IPSEC compliant and include 3DES encryption, MD5 and SHA1 authentication, etc. One of these products is a PCI based adapter, the PCI45, and I recently posted a driver for it at here. The driver will also be available at RedCreek's web site soon. The "importance" of this hardware/driver is that, I believe, it's the only encryption hardware currently on the market which works with Linux. RedCreek OEMs this adapter to Cisco and other large OEMs, but it will very soon be available pretty much off the shelf. This will make it possible to build high performance, low cost VPNs using Linux. "

William Hood writes " I wanted to submit this story from CNN about the tendency for IT workers to wind up putting in 60 hour work weeks, that are paid as only 40. This article was enough for me to wonder if it's time to finally bring unions into the tech industry. It is well known that most of the people who work at Microsoft essentially have no life outside of work. I heard a rumor that Bill Gates and friends once called a large meeting on Easter Sunday. While it is true that some techies may put in an entire month of 16 hour days to put some video game on the web to show their friends (I did this once), it is unreasonable that employers expect this of us all the time. We don't need the divorce rate amoung IT professionals to keep going up." S: I notice that my productivity falls and my bug-rate goes up if I overwork. I end up spending even more time trying to fix the bugs I've just introduced -- a nasty vicious cycle. What about you? Also do you think unions would improve matters?

We have a double whammy this time folks, and before you turn your noses, we all know that Linux is Y2K compliant. However, since it is such a buzzword today, people will want to be assured that it is compliant. How do we go about this? Here are two questions that might help us with the big answer: George Girod maintains a Year 2000 web page at here and would like "to find good links to any Year 2000 compliance information for Linux, its utilities, and other Open Source stuff. I would like to create an Open-Source section on my page and will use the links toward that end." and chardros asks "...are there any other major Y2K issues with Linux and core applications for it? Apache, Sendmail/Qmail, Samba, RDBMS's such as PostgreSQL, MySQL?" Click below for more... ...continued...

chadros also adds "As every business these days, my employer is in the process of Y2K testing, revising, re-vamping, etc. and with my help has taken notice of Linux in regards to it's ability to handle the year 2000. I'm aware that the current implimentation of date/time in Linux breaks on 2038 (32-bit anyway)...I figure the Linux community must have a handle on this and the status of things. And what is the forseen action for correcting 2038 in Linux (not that it's critical yet...) or are we hoping 32-bit is completely dead by then? [This]...could get Linux in the door here in a big way in our Y2K effort..."

I agree. What we need now is an easy, way to get the word around in a way the PHBs will understand (which would be a good thing!)

We have a double whammy this time folks, and before you turn your noses, we all know that Linux is Y2K compliant. However, since it is such a buzzword today, people will want to be assured that it is compliant. How do we go about this? Here are two questions that might help us with the big answer: George Girod maintains a Year 2000 web page at here and would like "to find good links to any Year 2000 compliance information for Linux, its utilities, and other Open Source stuff. I would like to create an Open-Source section on my page and will use the links toward that end." and chardros asks "...are there any other major Y2K issues with Linux and core applications for it? Apache, Sendmail/Qmail, Samba, RDBMS's such as PostgreSQL, MySQL?" Click below for more... ...continued...

chadros also adds "As every business these days, my employer is in the process of Y2K testing, revising, re-vamping, etc. and with my help has taken notice of Linux in regards to it's ability to handle the year 2000. I'm aware that the current implimentation of date/time in Linux breaks on 2038 (32-bit anyway)...I figure the Linux community must have a handle on this and the status of things. And what is the forseen action for correcting 2038 in Linux (not that it's critical yet...) or are we hoping 32-bit is completely dead by then? [This]...could get Linux in the door here in a big way in our Y2K effort..."

I agree. What we need now is an easy, way to get the word around in a way the PHBs will understand (which would be a good thing!)

Bill McCarthy sent us this InfoWorld story where you can read about Red Hat employee Ryan Tilden going above and beyond the call of duty to support Linux. It's amazingly positive publicity, and its on InfoWorld. Very cool.

Vladimir Z. Nuri sent us a link to Memelink. It's sort of a search engine that everyone maintains. We've seen a few of these before, but this one is maintained by everyone who visits. You can vote on pages, add your own etc. It's quite sparse right now, but conceptually this is quite interesting and could work. Will this sort of thing replace the traditional search engine?

karsten self wrote in to tell us LWN is running a bit saying that the LSB has been getting a lot of approval out at the expo. This is a Good Thing(tm) and I'm glad to see it.

thi wrote in to give us This link where you can read about a Internet Aware fridge. The prototype runs win95, but the next version will adopt Linux. Shell prompts on your home appliances? Uber cool.

Wayne Roberts wrote in to tell us that Slashdot apparently has been banned over at Powerwave.com. Wayne says "Congratulations, slashdot has been blocked at powerwave.com by the microsoft loving NT admin. I guess the teardrop story did it :)". I'd like somebody to confirm this for me, but I do suggest that nobody have anything to do with any company that is afraid of a little old web site. It's nice to know that we're getting noticed!